CLASSIC 20 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Social Policy, Calends, Gaius Gracchus
Document Summary
Man is or should be woman"s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex . Virtually all were married or previously married. Not a choice but an obligation of almost all women except the vestal virgins and prostitutes (independent women) Its an obligation imposed by society, fathers, and religious beliefs, and mothers. Women were always under the legal control of a man father/husband/male relative/friend of family. Patria potestas absolute authority of a father, legal to kill a son. Conspiracy of catiline: a senator proudly boasted that he killed his two sons. First brutus killed his two sons for plotting to restore the tarquins. Manus: the hand authority of a father over child or slave; earliest marriages transferred manus from father to husband (symbolic and legal act where women became property of another)
